In December 2011, in a peer-reviewed report in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Dr Carl Phillips – one of the U.S.’s most distinguished epidemiologists – concluded that there is ‘overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate’.

According to a study by U.S. noise control engineer Rick James, wind farms generate the same symptoms as Sick Building Syndrome – the condition that plagued office workers in the Eighties and Nineties as a result of what was eventually discovered to be the Low Frequency Noise (LFN), caused by misaligned air conditioning systems.

The combination of LFN and ‘amplitude modulation’ (loudness that goes up and down) leads to fatigue, poor concentration and dizziness.

And sleep specialist Dr Chris Hanning believes it stimulates an alert response, leading to arousal episodes throug the night that make restful sleep impossible.

‘I’ve spoken with many sufferers and sadly the only treatment is for them to move away from the wind farm.’

But if the problem is really so widespread, why isn’t it better known?

The short answer is money: the wind industry is a hugely lucrative business with millions to spend on lobbying.

What’s more, until recently, it benefited from the general public mood that ‘something ought to be done about climate change’ and wind power – supposedly ‘free’, ‘renewable’ and ‘carbon-friendly’ – was the obvious solution.

The desperation was palpable. Current planning laws have a presumption ‘in favour of sustainable development’.

Wind farms are deemed vital to Britain’s EU-driven campaign to cut its carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Arguments about wind turbines’ public health impacts seem to cut little ice with planning inspectors.

The whole system has been rigged in the industry’s favour. One of the biggest bones of contention is regulation of acceptable noise levels.

In Britain, wind developers are bound by ETSU-R-97, a code that places modest limits on sound within the normal human hearing range – but which fails to address the damaging aspect of wind turbines: infrasonic (ie, inaudible) Low Frequency Noise.

But according to RenewableUK’s ‘Top Myths About Wind Energy’ section, accusations that wind farms emit ‘infrasound and cause associated health problems’ are ‘unscientific’.

It quotes Dr Geoff Leventhall, author of the Defra report on Low Frequency Noise And Its Effects: ‘I can state quite categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.’

And Robert Norris, head of communications at RenewableUK, says: ‘There’s no evidence to link the very low levels of noise produced by wind farms with any effects on people living nearby.Windfarms near you

‘Low frequency noise isn’t a problem. Extensive measurements taken repeatedly by scientists across Europe and the USA show the level of sound is so minimal that it can’t be perceived, even close up.’

However, Robert Rand of Rand Acoustics in Maine, who has done work on wind farms and been a consultant in acoustics since 1980, says: ‘All wind turbines produce low-frequency noise. The reason it doesn’t show up on wind industry tests is that the equipment they use excludes low-frequency noise.’

Dr John Constable Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation adds: ‘Audible noise disturbance from wind turbines, particularly at night, is known to be a very serious and fairly common problem, but low frequency noise is a mystery.

'No one knows enough about it to say anything definite, one way or the other. This is one of those cases where more research really is needed.’

Dr Alec Salt, a cochlear physiologist at the Department of Otolaryngology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, has studied the topic since the Seventies.

‘The idea that there is no problem with infrasound couldn’t be more wrong,’ he says.

‘The responses of the human ear to LFN are just enormous. Bigger than to anything in the audible range.’

Audible sound stimulates the inner hair cells on the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear), but LFN triggers the outer hair cells, sending neural signals to the brain. Military special ops departments have known about it for some time.

A 1997 report by the U.S. Air Force Institute For National Security Studies notes: ‘Acoustic infrasound: very low frequency sound which can travel long distances and easily penetrate most buildings and vehicles.

‘It’s ridiculous. Here is an industry which is putting the health of tens of thousands of people at risk. If this were a pharmaceutical company sales would have been suspended by now. ’

His views are shared by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Robert McMurtry, once Canada’s most senior public health official: ‘Whatever you think about climate change, you can be sure that wind energy is not the solution.

'There is an abundance of evidence to the show that infrasound from wind farms represents a serious public health hazard. Until further research is done, there should be an immediate moratorium on building any more of them.’

The article is gets polemical at times, but I cut-and-pasted perhaps the most useful parts.

I'm not sure what to think about this--except, perhaps move people away from the wind farms after compensating them/going to court?

It could be an interested unintended consequence of government subsidies.

you know, we have plenty of instruments that can detect low frequency sound (or any frequency of sound for that matter)... it can't be all that hard to drop one near a turbine and figure out just how much 'noise' these things are actually putting out...

John Adams wrote:I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress! And by God I have had this Congress!

rdsrds2120 wrote:Now, just as we figured out how to fix the misaligned air conditioning that caused SBS, we figure out how to fix wind farms.

It could be an interested unintended consequence of government subsidies.

How? Who paid for it doesn't make sense on affecting the engineering of the turbines.

BMO

No, it may not affect the engineering, but it certainly increases its production, thus increasing the extent to which more people are affected by this problem.

Also, it may affect the engineering since these concerns--if foreseen--could be ignored since the profitability of producing is so high (thanks to the subsidies).

Are we certain that the building of wind turbines without government subsidies even induces a profit? How much do the subsidies provide in net profit?

BMO

BMO, if the subsidies were perceived as not profitable at the time of making a decision, then why would anyone produce something at a loss?

Maybe in a few cases, that may happen (because that person is crazy, or because a corporation receives a net-income somehow from incurring a loss), but for nearly all, people built these wind mills because the government subsidy covers many of the start-up costs, thus making the endeavor profitable.

If wind mills (i love calling them wind mills, so bear with me)... if wind mills were profitable on their own, then justifying subsidies for them becomes more difficult--unless of course, the government wishes to increase the production of wind mills by subsidizing it. This in turn makes the endeavor of producing more wind mills more profitable.

The biggest debate around proposed wind farms around here, is generally the acceptable set-back distance from residences. People don't want to live next to industrial facilities, and the companies building them want to be as close to the existing power grid as possible. This supposed LFN is just another reason to make that distance larger, in some cases.

BigBallinStalin wrote:Maybe in a few cases, that may happen (because that person is crazy, or because a corporation receives a net-income somehow from incurring a loss), but for nearly all, people built these wind mills because the government subsidy covers many of the start-up costs, thus making the endeavor profitable.

If wind mills (i love calling them wind mills, so bear with me)... if wind mills were profitable on their own, then justifying subsidies for them becomes more difficult--unless of course, the government wishes to increase the production of wind mills by subsidizing it. This in turn makes the endeavor of producing more wind mills more profitable.

The theory we are being told is, that although wind farms could not be profitably run at present, that by subsidizing these facilities the government is creating a market, which will create incentives for increased research and development, which will eventually bring the costs down and make the subsidies unnecessary.

It is just barely plausible, but I find the theory rather weak. For starters, research and development has very unpredictable results. One might get a breakthrough, and then again one might not. Furthermore, windmills are not a new field where spectacular new discoveries are likely. This is something that has been exhaustively researched for decades already; I see no reason to be confident that another decade of research will suddenly give us a miracle windmill.

BigBallinStalin wrote:Maybe in a few cases, that may happen (because that person is crazy, or because a corporation receives a net-income somehow from incurring a loss), but for nearly all, people built these wind mills because the government subsidy covers many of the start-up costs, thus making the endeavor profitable.

If wind mills (i love calling them wind mills, so bear with me)... if wind mills were profitable on their own, then justifying subsidies for them becomes more difficult--unless of course, the government wishes to increase the production of wind mills by subsidizing it. This in turn makes the endeavor of producing more wind mills more profitable.

The theory we are being told is, that although wind farms could not be profitably run at present, that by subsidizing these facilities the government is creating a market, which will create incentives for increased research and development, which will eventually bring the costs down and make the subsidies unnecessary.

It is just barely plausible, but I find the theory rather weak. For starters, research and development has very unpredictable results. One might get a breakthrough, and then again one might not. Furthermore, windmills are not a new field where spectacular new discoveries are likely. This is something that has been exhaustively researched for decades already; I see no reason to be confident that another decade of research will suddenly give us a miracle windmill.

IIRC, that industry has been receiving these subsidies for the past 10, maybe 20, possibly 30 years--and still the promises of the subsidy have yet to be realized. The subsidy doesn't seem cost-effective at all.

I presume that the subsidy is continued because (1) their lobbyists are effective, (2) politicians who approve of this subsidy are rewarded by the environmental market of voters--who simply don't know any better. They feel great when they vote for the politician who says the right string of environmentally friendly sentences.

There are some rather large windmills a few towns over from me and I find them generally creepy. This is not to mention I had to learn about these things in school and they're not all they're cracked up to be.

All this talk about windmills has got me a-hankering for some freshly baked bread!

Meanwhile. I performed a study/literature review on LFN and the effect of wind turbines on health when I first entered the electricity industry. The general consensus from what information I could find was generally lumped into three areas: Turbine suppliers and Farm developers saying nothing is wrong (well durr), angry residents who have banded together with sweet confirmational bias and spread a whole bunch of misinformation, and one or two studies that have found there is little or no effect unless you literally have one on your doorstep - these guys generally recommend ~1km setback for any occupied residence.

Both the first two parties should be ignored, and BBS's article screams of one of these. What usually happens is thus: Wind farm developer wants to build turbines, local NIMBY resident doesnt want them there. Either proposal goes ahead and NIMBY guy gets angry and jumps on the they are giving me a headache bandwagon; or it goes the other way and developer goes on some campaign along the lines of how its so unfair and the local authorities want to destroy the world. Both parties are circle jerks of confirmational bias and group think.

The actual issue is pretty hard to tie down as generally LFN issues pop up where there has been local opposition to a wind farm; have you got a link for the 2011 report?

My brief search just now left me feeling inconclusive. There's not a whole lot to go on scientifically. A lot of the complaints are stress-related, and there's a lot of possible confounders there. Mostly, I'm too drunk to care enough to look at the methodology.

Lootifer wrote:All this talk about windmills has got me a-hankering for some freshly baked bread!

Meanwhile. I performed a study/literature review on LFN and the effect of wind turbines on health when I first entered the electricity industry. The general consensus from what information I could find was generally lumped into three areas: Turbine suppliers and Farm developers saying nothing is wrong (well durr), angry residents who have banded together with sweet confirmational bias and spread a whole bunch of misinformation, and one or two studies that have found there is little or no effect unless you literally have one on your doorstep - these guys generally recommend ~1km setback for any occupied residence.

Both the first two parties should be ignored, and BBS's article screams of one of these. What usually happens is thus: Wind farm developer wants to build turbines, local NIMBY resident doesnt want them there. Either proposal goes ahead and NIMBY guy gets angry and jumps on the they are giving me a headache bandwagon; or it goes the other way and developer goes on some campaign along the lines of how its so unfair and the local authorities want to destroy the world. Both parties are circle jerks of confirmational bias and group think.

The actual issue is pretty hard to tie down as generally LFN issues pop up where there has been local opposition to a wind farm; have you got a link for the 2011 report?

These are all self-reported ailments. In other words, they aren't ailments.

Second, the government has a duty to put wind turbines in these regions so that the fat WASP NIMBYists go live somewhere else and take their murdering cat and their fat, ugly family and house and their stupid F350s with them.

In December 2011, in a peer-reviewed report in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Dr Carl Phillips – one of the U.S.’s most distinguished epidemiologists – concluded that there is ‘overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate’.

According to a study by U.S. noise control engineer Rick James, wind farms generate the same symptoms as Sick Building Syndrome – the condition that plagued office workers in the Eighties and Nineties as a result of what was eventually discovered to be the Low Frequency Noise (LFN), caused by misaligned air conditioning systems.

The combination of LFN and ‘amplitude modulation’ (loudness that goes up and down) leads to fatigue, poor concentration and dizziness.

And sleep specialist Dr Chris Hanning believes it stimulates an alert response, leading to arousal episodes throug the night that make restful sleep impossible.

‘I’ve spoken with many sufferers and sadly the only treatment is for them to move away from the wind farm.’

But if the problem is really so widespread, why isn’t it better known?

The short answer is money: the wind industry is a hugely lucrative business with millions to spend on lobbying.

What’s more, until recently, it benefited from the general public mood that ‘something ought to be done about climate change’ and wind power – supposedly ‘free’, ‘renewable’ and ‘carbon-friendly’ – was the obvious solution.

The desperation was palpable. Current planning laws have a presumption ‘in favour of sustainable development’.

Wind farms are deemed vital to Britain’s EU-driven campaign to cut its carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Arguments about wind turbines’ public health impacts seem to cut little ice with planning inspectors.

The whole system has been rigged in the industry’s favour. One of the biggest bones of contention is regulation of acceptable noise levels.

In Britain, wind developers are bound by ETSU-R-97, a code that places modest limits on sound within the normal human hearing range – but which fails to address the damaging aspect of wind turbines: infrasonic (ie, inaudible) Low Frequency Noise.

But according to RenewableUK’s ‘Top Myths About Wind Energy’ section, accusations that wind farms emit ‘infrasound and cause associated health problems’ are ‘unscientific’.

It quotes Dr Geoff Leventhall, author of the Defra report on Low Frequency Noise And Its Effects: ‘I can state quite categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.’

And Robert Norris, head of communications at RenewableUK, says: ‘There’s no evidence to link the very low levels of noise produced by wind farms with any effects on people living nearby.Windfarms near you

‘Low frequency noise isn’t a problem. Extensive measurements taken repeatedly by scientists across Europe and the USA show the level of sound is so minimal that it can’t be perceived, even close up.’

However, Robert Rand of Rand Acoustics in Maine, who has done work on wind farms and been a consultant in acoustics since 1980, says: ‘All wind turbines produce low-frequency noise. The reason it doesn’t show up on wind industry tests is that the equipment they use excludes low-frequency noise.’

Dr John Constable Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation adds: ‘Audible noise disturbance from wind turbines, particularly at night, is known to be a very serious and fairly common problem, but low frequency noise is a mystery.

'No one knows enough about it to say anything definite, one way or the other. This is one of those cases where more research really is needed.’

Dr Alec Salt, a cochlear physiologist at the Department of Otolaryngology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, has studied the topic since the Seventies.

‘The idea that there is no problem with infrasound couldn’t be more wrong,’ he says.

‘The responses of the human ear to LFN are just enormous. Bigger than to anything in the audible range.’

Audible sound stimulates the inner hair cells on the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear), but LFN triggers the outer hair cells, sending neural signals to the brain. Military special ops departments have known about it for some time.

A 1997 report by the U.S. Air Force Institute For National Security Studies notes: ‘Acoustic infrasound: very low frequency sound which can travel long distances and easily penetrate most buildings and vehicles.

‘It’s ridiculous. Here is an industry which is putting the health of tens of thousands of people at risk. If this were a pharmaceutical company sales would have been suspended by now. ’

His views are shared by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Robert McMurtry, once Canada’s most senior public health official: ‘Whatever you think about climate change, you can be sure that wind energy is not the solution.

'There is an abundance of evidence to the show that infrasound from wind farms represents a serious public health hazard. Until further research is done, there should be an immediate moratorium on building any more of them.’

The article is gets polemical at times, but I cut-and-pasted perhaps the most useful parts.

I'm not sure what to think about this--except, perhaps move people away from the wind farms after compensating them/going to court?

It could be an interested unintended consequence of government subsidies.

"Bad" is a relative term, particularly when talking about the environment.

There are several questions-1. Is the evidence conclusive? In the absolute sense, no. A true epidemiological conclusion requires much longer and more widespread studies. Many times a quick answer seems apparent, but further study shows something entirely different.

2. Is the evidence enough to warrant a "fix" or attempt at a fix. Some modifications are possible to mitigate much of the damage. One obvious solution, already largely employed, is to locate these further from population centers and/or to place them more widely. (one turbine is apparently not as bad as multiple ones). Its also possible some design alteration might help. Any of those are likely worth trying. Unfortunately, too often the only fix opponents seek is complete demolition... and often their reasons have little to do with the real problems, but instead to do with competing interests (as in oil companies finding a lot more problems with global weather data than independent researchers)

3. Is the problem worse than other available technologies? While those problems are serious, are the equal or worse than the problems caused by petroleum production and use? The answer to that is "no" -- not as the evidence presents itself right now.

4. Are there other problems? In fact, the answer is "yes"... these turbines interfere with bird migration, etc, etc.

ALL of this is definitely enough to give pause, thought and to warrant further research.

In December 2011, in a peer-reviewed report in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Dr Carl Phillips – one of the U.S.’s most distinguished epidemiologists – concluded that there is ‘overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate’.

According to a study by U.S. noise control engineer Rick James, wind farms generate the same symptoms as Sick Building Syndrome – the condition that plagued office workers in the Eighties and Nineties as a result of what was eventually discovered to be the Low Frequency Noise (LFN), caused by misaligned air conditioning systems.

The combination of LFN and ‘amplitude modulation’ (loudness that goes up and down) leads to fatigue, poor concentration and dizziness.

And sleep specialist Dr Chris Hanning believes it stimulates an alert response, leading to arousal episodes throug the night that make restful sleep impossible.

‘I’ve spoken with many sufferers and sadly the only treatment is for them to move away from the wind farm.’

But if the problem is really so widespread, why isn’t it better known?

The short answer is money: the wind industry is a hugely lucrative business with millions to spend on lobbying.

What’s more, until recently, it benefited from the general public mood that ‘something ought to be done about climate change’ and wind power – supposedly ‘free’, ‘renewable’ and ‘carbon-friendly’ – was the obvious solution.

The desperation was palpable. Current planning laws have a presumption ‘in favour of sustainable development’.

Wind farms are deemed vital to Britain’s EU-driven campaign to cut its carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Arguments about wind turbines’ public health impacts seem to cut little ice with planning inspectors.

The whole system has been rigged in the industry’s favour. One of the biggest bones of contention is regulation of acceptable noise levels.

In Britain, wind developers are bound by ETSU-R-97, a code that places modest limits on sound within the normal human hearing range – but which fails to address the damaging aspect of wind turbines: infrasonic (ie, inaudible) Low Frequency Noise.

But according to RenewableUK’s ‘Top Myths About Wind Energy’ section, accusations that wind farms emit ‘infrasound and cause associated health problems’ are ‘unscientific’.

It quotes Dr Geoff Leventhall, author of the Defra report on Low Frequency Noise And Its Effects: ‘I can state quite categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.’

And Robert Norris, head of communications at RenewableUK, says: ‘There’s no evidence to link the very low levels of noise produced by wind farms with any effects on people living nearby.Windfarms near you

‘Low frequency noise isn’t a problem. Extensive measurements taken repeatedly by scientists across Europe and the USA show the level of sound is so minimal that it can’t be perceived, even close up.’

However, Robert Rand of Rand Acoustics in Maine, who has done work on wind farms and been a consultant in acoustics since 1980, says: ‘All wind turbines produce low-frequency noise. The reason it doesn’t show up on wind industry tests is that the equipment they use excludes low-frequency noise.’

Dr John Constable Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation adds: ‘Audible noise disturbance from wind turbines, particularly at night, is known to be a very serious and fairly common problem, but low frequency noise is a mystery.

'No one knows enough about it to say anything definite, one way or the other. This is one of those cases where more research really is needed.’

Dr Alec Salt, a cochlear physiologist at the Department of Otolaryngology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, has studied the topic since the Seventies.

‘The idea that there is no problem with infrasound couldn’t be more wrong,’ he says.

‘The responses of the human ear to LFN are just enormous. Bigger than to anything in the audible range.’

Audible sound stimulates the inner hair cells on the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear), but LFN triggers the outer hair cells, sending neural signals to the brain. Military special ops departments have known about it for some time.

A 1997 report by the U.S. Air Force Institute For National Security Studies notes: ‘Acoustic infrasound: very low frequency sound which can travel long distances and easily penetrate most buildings and vehicles.

‘It’s ridiculous. Here is an industry which is putting the health of tens of thousands of people at risk. If this were a pharmaceutical company sales would have been suspended by now. ’

His views are shared by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Robert McMurtry, once Canada’s most senior public health official: ‘Whatever you think about climate change, you can be sure that wind energy is not the solution.

'There is an abundance of evidence to the show that infrasound from wind farms represents a serious public health hazard. Until further research is done, there should be an immediate moratorium on building any more of them.’

The article is gets polemical at times, but I cut-and-pasted perhaps the most useful parts.

I'm not sure what to think about this--except, perhaps move people away from the wind farms after compensating them/going to court?

It could be an interested unintended consequence of government subsidies.

"Bad" is a relative term, particularly when talking about the environment.

There are several questions-1. Is the evidence conclusive? In the absolute sense, no. A true epidemiological conclusion requires much longer and more widespread studies. Many times a quick answer seems apparent, but further study shows something entirely different.

2. Is the evidence enough to warrant a "fix" or attempt at a fix. Some modifications are possible to mitigate much of the damage. One obvious solution, already largely employed, is to locate these further from population centers and/or to place them more widely. (one turbine is apparently not as bad as multiple ones). Its also possible some design alteration might help. Any of those are likely worth trying. Unfortunately, too often the only fix opponents seek is complete demolition... and often their reasons have little to do with the real problems, but instead to do with competing interests (as in oil companies finding a lot more problems with global weather data than independent researchers)

3. Is the problem worse than other available technologies? While those problems are serious, are the equal or worse than the problems caused by petroleum production and use? The answer to that is "no" -- not as the evidence presents itself right now.

4. Are there other problems? In fact, the answer is "yes"... these turbines interfere with bird migration, etc, etc.

ALL of this is definitely enough to give pause, thought and to warrant further research.

If the human race could work together to produce energy and food, in the more efficient ways possible, nearly every other problem would go away, but humans are corrupt by nature, and practically speaking, only work together when absolutely necessary to produce the best result.

After disasters, its amazing what we accomplish, but preventing them is just something we have not evolved to do en-masse.

Wind farms also chop up quite a few birds too.

Im not arguing against them, because certainly there are perfect places for them, and it would be silly not to take advantage of that, but just as ignoring the problems with oil, coal, nuclear and literally every other power source we know of, ignoring the problems with wind towers, is just ridiculous, because in the long run, without the correct benefit vs cost analysis, faulty decisions are made.

However, one could argue, and I am, given the consequences of not phasing out fossil fuels, the risks associated with other power supplies may very well be worth it. Except....they really should be in the right place at the right time, to avoid unnecessary risks as well.

Given the choice of a little depression and a few(million) chopped up birds over the possibility of 50 tons of ice on top of my house....I might be willing to make that sacrifice, even though, it probably isnt necessary with a little better planning, and correct implementation of alternative power.

AAFitz wrote:If you are unlucky enough to have the sun eclipse a turbine, the blinking light can mess with you physically as well.

Flicker is something that is well researched and documented. You will find that in most countries will have fairly strict regulations around flicker issues (ie you cant place any turbines such that residences or workplaces will suffer flicker issues).

DoomYoshi wrote:These are all self-reported ailments. In other words, they aren't ailments.

Thats just bullshit.

After posting something that stupid, there should honestly be a 6 month ban.

Bullshit? Is it really? An ailment is something that has a measurable physiological element. Your arm falling off is an ailment. A rash on your neck is an ailment. A significantly lower level of endorphins is an ailment.

"nausea" and "dizziness" aren't ailments. They are placebo effects. Also, because they are self-reported, no statistical analysis can be done with them.

So what is stupid about what I said? Are you a homeopathic "doctor" taking offense that I am dashing your dreams of being recognized as a real science?